Happy

Not saying this would happen to you, but rapid applications in short period of time even getting instant approvals et all, may come back to haunt you. When and if Chase does account reviews, or a recon rep goes over your account history, Chase may suddenly view you as a risk and shuts you down without warning. It does not matter that its system that hands out the instant approval after instant approval.

The fact that the recon rep refused to reallocate CL so to open yet another new card is a tell tale sign you are about to take it too far with Chase.

Take the heed from Brugges. Go Slow and Steady with Chase if you want to stay on their good side and in the game for the long run.

PeaceandPost

Fair enough. I'm pretty new to all this so it's good to know that there is an inherent risk of applying too aggressively.

I think I might take 6 months off before putting in any apps and stick to one Chase app at a time.

Happy

It can be viewed as the applicant is desperately seeking credit due to impending financial troubles, especially if the applicant does not have any history with a bank to speak of.

RNE

As of Wednesday, I had the following Chase cards with a total credit limit of $45.9k.

Explorer
Freedom
Marriott
Presidential Plus
Sapphire Preferred
Slate

On Thursday, I applied for the IHG card. I was instantly approved. I didn't have to horse around with credit limits on other cards nor worry about my total credit limit. All that is flimflam.

Seventh card. Instant approval. Credit limit now $50.9k. Enough said.

Happy

Your total CL is on the LOW side. Even with your newly mint IHG, you are still 10 to 15K below the "max level". How many cards do not really matter. In fact I am always amazed on how some folks have many cards yet the total credit lines are quite low, seems like no card is above 10K line.

AFAIK, (told by multiple reps at recon calls), once reaching 60 to 65K, most people are bumping up against the ceiling. When I did not get an instant approval of a Marriott card, the nice rep told me it was SOLELY because my total line was at 60K. I let her take 5K from IHG to open Marriott. Yet, the Ink Plus that was applied at the same time but I did not call, was given 5K + 5K taken from a Freedom (was 20K before that) to make it a 10K line, totally without my knowledge - just show up online this way, and later got a letter from Chase to that effect. That also meant now my total CL went up to 65K.

Currently I have 3 business cards for 30K total, and 3 personal cards for 35K total. 6 cards. and together it is 65K. Again close to the ceiling.

Of course that 60-65K number is just a ballpark and plenty of people have exceeded that number. Though it seems to be the "max level" that both me and spouse, as well as several friends are being told so by Chase recon reps on various occasions.

Wait till you get up to the 60-65K level, then you may change your tune.

FWIW, husband's IHG was instant approval with a ridiculous 17K. Once he met the spend and after the bonus posted, we promptly lowered it to 7K. The earning power on the IHG is very weak, there is no reason to let it take up a big CL that would hinder other cards that their time will come in the 2nd half of the year.

There is no point to beat the dead horse or to prove anything - as which approach is better, to each their own. Just pick the approach one feels being the best.

PeaceandPost

Just curious about the argument between max credit line and number of cards. My wife only has 24K total credit on her three Chase cards and the recon rep said many times that she "had enough cards" or "had too many cards" and never mentioned that the current level of credit was as much as Chase could extend.

I will say we're both in our mid 20's and relatively new to credit (pretty short AAoA). And I probably overextended myself applying for too many Chase cards in a short window.

So ultimately do you think that its the "too many recent requests for credit and opened accounts" that is the main problem? I guess I'm saying if the applications had been spread apart better would Chase be more willing to extend more credit (i.e. they don't have a problem with the total amount of credit currently extended)?

RickyBobby

I can definitely attest to this...I currently have 5 personal cards and 1 biz card and it has taken about 3 years to get there. When I first started with Chase, the first year I applied for and was approved for CSP and Freedom (applied the same day) and 6 months later, I applied for Marriott and Ink and was turned down with them citing the "too many cards" as well as telling me they would like to see more tenure with not only their cards but the other cards I had as well (I had opened a bunch of new cards with different banks at the same time as CSP and Freedom). I waited another 6 months and was approved for Ink and Marriott and another year later approved for Ritz and IHG. Total CL exposure with Chase is about $50k now. Give it time and tenure on all your accounts, and Chase will give you guys more.

Happy

Your credit profiles are too thin. Many posts you read are from people who have decades of credit history / many years of history with a bank - in short, those are "known" customers who have proven to the banks they are good credit risks.

Remember what you see on internet forums are very much lack of details - a person in his mid 40's with 20 years of credit history, would be treated very differently (more favorably) than a person in his mid 20's just a few years out from college. The fact that you also applied multiple cards with other banks certainly did not help. just sayin.

With your short history, you really should build up history with banks, in particularly Chase and Barclays the 2 banks really pay attention to history with them and credit history in general before you go aggressively applying multiple cards everywhere. Have you even had 2 years history with Chase?

snic

Just a data point or two to support what Happy is saying here: Mrs snic and I are both "mid 40's with 20 years of credit history", we have excellent credit scores, and much of that history is with Chase. When we apply for Chase cards, Chase is *extremely* careful about credit limits despite our long and positive relationship with them: when we call after not being approved immediately, they'll sometimes say things like "you already have a very high credit limit on card X; would you be willing to reduce your credit limit on that card?" I imagine that if I applied for 2 or 3 Chase cards all at once, this would raise some alarm bells with them and they would at the very least make sure that my total credit didn't exceed what I had before by very much. In the case of someone with a shorter credit history, I can see how the answer would just be "no" for more than one application at the same time. Try again in 6 months or a year!

TMM1982

That doesn't work if someone needs points/miles for travel now.

blitzen

Try using that argument on your reconsideration call

othermike27

Agreed. Here's another data point: 4 Chase cards total - 3 personal for $50K CL and one Ink Bold at CL = $22K, for a grand total CL = $72K. Chase credit history goes back to 2004, with continuous overall credit history dating 20+ years before that. I didn't ask for $22K on the Ink, that's what they gave me. OTOH, last personal card was approved at only $5K, so I think that hit some kind of limit.

Brugge

What you've said here just screams to me "you have too high a CL with Chase". Time to start pruning it down, or one of these days they will deny an app, and not even consider moving credit to the new card. When they get to that point they just say "no", and there is no reasoning with them. Even offering to close an open card doesn't work.

Despite many years of perfect credit history with Chase, in fact with everyone, I nearly hit that point. After saying "you have so much CL with us", they referred my app to a manager to review. He finally, and quite reluctantly, approved my app. I got the message, cut my Chase CL in half, and have gotten instant approvals since then.

RNE

Good advice. While Chase is certainly concerned that the people to whom it gives credit are credit worthy, it is also on the lookout for people who are acquiring credit cards primarily for sign-up bonuses and category spend. That can trigger the dreaded "too many cards" response. So can drawing attention to oneself by structuring credit limits.

Brugge

"structuring" I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Feel free to post some data points about this. Because aside from your assertions, I personally am not aware of any.